Vympel BETA by Earl

Note: This is an old review from before the "Great Crash Of 2003". For that reason, it may be slightly out of date. Since this review was written, the final has been released and can be downloaded here.

This new BETA from the Baconbomb mod team allows Ghost Recon players to take their place in the elite Russian special operations group, "Spetsgruppa Vympel." It adds a host of Russian weapons and equipment as well as soliers.

First Impressions

As this was a closed BETA, there was on readme with the mod. The BETA group consisted only of those with a background in playing mods, so the risk of newcomers getting lost with the mod was marginal. When I activated the mod and started up, I was immediately greeted by a Russian sniper complete with SVD sniper rifle... Which was nice

9/10

Mod Features

As mentioned above the mod is a partial conversion mod containing all the tools and personnel of the Russian special forces.

- The weapons... wow, Earl has done an amazing job here. There are approximately 90 kits and 30 new weapons, primaries and secondaries; assualt rifles, submachine guns, pistols, sniper rifles... the whole lot. Each weapon has its own new model. These models are perhaps the sweetest eastern bloc weapon models I have seen for any game, let alone Ghost Recon. The texturing surpasses proffesional level without having excessively large .rsb files. Make no mistake... if you have ever made a Kalashnikov model in 3DS Max and have thought to yourself "hmm, this looks OK," this mod may not be for you... it will put your own work to shame. The sounds may have let the weapons down a bit. A lot of the weapons used original GR sounds though this was something Earl had already explained. The weapons that did have new sounds (or they may have been from IT) were usually very well done, like the PKM and 9A-91.

- The skins and actors included are also very impressive. The whole roster of 250 names has been replaced with a team of Russians. Kudos goes out to the team for this - thinking up 250 names is hard enough but 250 Russian names must be even harder! Some interesting names turned up, Makarov and Kalashnikov being good ones And I bet you didn't know that Uriy Gagarin was Russian SF. There is variation amongst the classes meaning that you could pick two or three riflemen, all with individual skins.

9/10

Mod Gameplay

The weapons were all very well balanced, and seemed realistic. Some weapons would have a large magazine capacity which would be kept in equilibrium by a short scope zoom, like the Bizon. There were some very satisfyingly destructive weapons like the V-94 anti-material sniper rifle which could blow enemies off their feet like the MaNiaC Biker Dude M82A1. However, I noticed some of the support weapons having quite long-range zoom. While this may have been justified by the scope modelled on the weapon, it made it feel more like an assault rifle.

9/10

Multiplayer

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to review the mod in MP so can't comment on this aspect. I sure would love to though...

N/A

Bugs/Issues

This is where the mod loses points In the original release of the mod, there was a glitch invlolving the selection of DS operatives whereby the game would crash. This was promtly fixed with a small patch but a few bugs remained. The PSS pistol, whenever fired, would cause the player's primary sound to mute. This was fixed by switching to another actor, firing their weapon and switching back. No big deal but would be off-putting in MP. The Groza weapon sound differed depending on whether you selected the version with or without the GP-25 underbarrel grenade launcher. One of the new RPG launchers was also without a texture. Of course this is only a BETA the point of which is to seek out these bugs, so hopefully we will see them fixed for final release.

7/10

Conclusion

I have to say that this mod has worked its way to the number one weapon mod, in my opinion. I sincerely hope that Earl and co. go the whole hog and make it into the finest total conversion mod seen yet for Ghost Recon... I know they are capable of it.

However, the one thing that really disappointed me was the fact that this mod is simply too good to be played "only for comical purposes." LMAO

Only yesterday I decided to download this "old" mod and to try it. The reason of my delay is that it's only a couple of months that I bought a decent PC so I could use the graphic details not at minimum and therefore appreciate skins and weapons.

Let me say that this mod look impressive with a an attention to the details that is almost perfect.

I can make only one "negative" comment:
This wonderful mod, like many others like, for example, IDF, Croatian mod, ADF and generally all the skins mods, IMHO do not receive the honor they deserve just because they lack of a campaign.
In this case for example it would be wonderful to have a Chechenya mod, unfortunately so famous at this time.

I agree with giwex - its nice to provide a context for the new skins and weapons.
A campaign with the mod makes it appealing to everyone. For example, I've just finished Operation Iraqi Freedom. Its a mod I downloaded purely because it offered a campaign. But having played it, I enjoyed the weapons - so now use it a lot of the time.

I just downloaded this mod today and it is one of the best mods I have seen. I am hoping to create a campaign based on the situation in Chechnya set in 2005. I hope that Earl gives me permission to use some of his material from this mod and his Standard Upgrade mod that is by far the best weapons mod I have ever seen. But back to the Vympel mod. This is a great skins/weapons mod that I have seen for Russians. the weapons are great and the skins are better.

hope that Earl gives me permission to use some of his material from this mod and his Standard Upgrade mod that is by far the best weapons mod I have ever seen.

There are two ways to use material from other mods:1) ask him the permit to copy the files you need in your mod and include in your readme file the explanation of it2) consider it as a necessary mod to make your own mod. In this way both mods (yours and, in this case, Vympel) have to be activated in order to be played. When making your mod you have to activate it in igor.I believe in this case no need of asking is required since the original mod is not modified ijn any form

I have this mod for quiet some time but didn't pay attention on it because of newer mods that kept coming and coming...
However lately I realized that, this mod have a really nice looking uniforms and weapons and it is unique in its category.

Great job Earl!

Again I have a question since there was some talking about patch which one will provide users of this mod with jungle uniforms.
Is that patch out there and available for download?